Spark of Innovation: J. Jay Gargus

Editor's note: Commentary periodically spotlights research by local engineers and scientists to encourage Orange County students to see the career possibilities for themselves in science, technology, medicine and engineering, as well as to note some of today's most interesting explorations. Bill Blanning coordinates this feature.

The newly funded UC Irvine Center for Autism Research and Treatment was established with philanthropic support from the William & Nancy Thompson Family Foundation.

What project/research are you working on? A genome function-based drug discovery platform to find novel drugs correcting the core deficits in autism.

What would be the most successful outcome of your work, and what impact would it have on how we live? The daring, but most successful outcome of our work would be to come to the point of understanding the core molecular defect leading to autism well enough that we could identify a novel drug to repair this defect and warrant a clinical trial in patients with the disease. Should this be successful, it would have a major impact on an epidemic that now effects more than 1 percent of children and has a major impact on society worldwide.

What about this project is important to you personally? What is the very best part of your job – when do you feel the most satisfaction? It is truly exciting and gratifying to arrive at this special chance in time when a devastating cryptic disease such as autism is on the threshold of just becoming accessible to cutting edge scientific techniques that can unfold its secrets, opening new areas of understanding of the brain and rendering the disease potentially treatable. Having a great synergistic team of collaborative creative scientists working together on this important challenge makes it all the more fun and rewarding.

Why did you choose this career? I entered an M.D. / Ph.D. program because I wanted to make scientific discoveries that could directly help patients. When I entered human genetics it was a very new field that had just learned to distinguish each human chromosome, but it was clear already that the field held an incredible potential for new insights into the innermost workings of disease. I never imagined, however, that we would be reading our patients' personal genetic code and designing medications specific for them, as we are already doing today.

Who or what inspired you to study in your field? Enthusiastic professors in college providing me unique undergraduate research opportunities; in medical school, patients having provocative diseases that cried out for a cure.

What makes you particularly well-suited to this work? I enjoy directly interacting with patients and their families and love collaborative science focused in a multidisciplinary way on a disease topic that I think we have a special opportunity to solve together.

Where did you go to college?What degrees do you have? Case Western Reserve University for undergraduate in biology and Yale University School of Medicine for an M.D. and Ph.D. in medicine and human genetics.

During high school and college, which courses helped best prepare you for your current position? Biology and chemistry in high school and genetics and biochemistry in college.

What is the best advice you received that has helped further your career? Find a topic that you love and make sure you are always asking the big question.

What advice would you give, particularly to the student who may think math, science or engineering are "too hard" for him or her? There are huge rewards to sticking with it, because while things go very slow in the beginning, when, with hard work, it all comes together, it makes beautiful sense and enriches how you see the world.

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